Braces- First extraction

  In this post, I'm going to talk about the part where most people are afraid of- tooth extraction! In order to proceed with my braces treatment, I'll have to extract 4 teeth to make space for my teeth to move. She wrote a letter to indicate which teeth that the dentist should get rid of. The teeth that have to go is my 4th upper left and right premolars, which is symmetry to each other. But the lower one she chose confuses me cause it's the 4th and 5th premolars which is unsymmetrical to each other. I'm super worried that my teeth will turn out weird, but well, I'm gonna put my faith on her. She's the pro, and I shall trust her. The place I did braces doesn't offer tooth extraction service, so I went to a clinic near my house to perform the tooth extraction.

  I decided to pluck my teeth off two by two, each with a week gap. I drove to the clinic ALONE and undergo the whole process ALONE. *imma brave girl yo* After taking a number, I waited for a few minutes, until my number is called. I went into the room, doctor checked the letter, and I was asked to sit. The female dentist was really nice and considerate to ask if I've had my breakfast and asked me not to be nervous. She then took out a needle syringe and injected a total of  4 doses of anaesthesia. The locations where she inserted the needle is on my outer gum and the other one nearby my inner gum. I felt a slight pain which I'll rate the degree of pain-ness 2/10 and the other one 3/10. She asked me to wait outside the room to wait for the effect of anaesthesia to take place. I couldn't feel my lips just after the injection. What followed on was even worse, the feeling of numbness went up to my nose and ended up I can't even feel my nose. The sensation was kinda weird as when i touch my own lips, it felt like I'm touching a foreign object which doesn't belongs to me. Blood kept flowing out because I couldn't control my lips. It looked kinda scary with a large amount of blood pouring but actually it was just blood that mixed with my saliva made it look so dramatic. Few minutes later, the nurse asked me in and there I am sitting there ready to get my teeth extracted. I might look calm outside, but in the inside I was trembling and holding my hands together. Within a few minutes of tugging and pulling, my tooth was detached from the gum. I didn't feel any pain at all and it was quite a relief to me.

  The aftermath of having 2 teeth plucked is kinda a hassle. I bit the cotton they gave me for around 3 hours and change it whenever it's soaked completely with blood. Hot beverages and food are prohibited to avoid more bleeding. Straws also cannot be used to allow the blood to clot properly and heal itself. I was so scared of dry socket(which is the detaching of blood clot from your extraction site which FYI will be super painful whenever food comes in contact with it) and fortunately I took good care so it didn't happen :)

  It's basically the same procedure and things to take caution for the second round of teeth extraction. I'm really lucky for I've not encountered any discomfort during the one week of healing time. Everything goes pretty smooth and I'm ready to put on my braces on the next appointment. Cheers!

Journey of becoming a metal-mouth girl

My deceiving teeth. Looks tidy but actually it is not.

  I have no problem with my teeth when i was young. But I have a bad habit of sucking thumb until the age of *secret*. So that's when the problem arises when I'm a teenager, I can't bite with my front teeth, AT ALL. I've always been very conscious with how I look and smile with my teeth because I think I look hideous with it. Told my mum a million times about doing braces but she insisted that my teeth look fine and that I don't need a braces, but there comes my hero! My dad thought that my teeth is actually quite protruding so he agreed to let me have braces! Yeah cheers!

Let us have a closer look. Open Bite with misalignment of the middle line

  After the consultation with my orthodontist which consists of taking x-ray and mould, she told me the problem that I'm having is a anterior open bite. I always thought I'm having a buck teeth, but its actually a different thing with open bite. Buck teeth is a layman term of an overbite which is what orthodontist named them. The X-ray shows that the bone structure of my teeth is also part of the reason why I'm having an open bite, it's not entirely the faulty of my teeth, so that means an orthognathic surgery might be required to fix my bite entirely. Although it's a minor surgery but I still I have no guts to do that. Then she told me I can still fix it with braces only, but I'll have to wear retainer in the rest of my life. Sigh, so retainer it is! I still want a bright, straight pearly teeth and a nice smile with no space in between the bite!

The dreadful spacers

  During the next appointment, 8 separators, also known as spacers were placed between my molars. The spacers are used to make space to make the fitting of molar bands easier. Don't you look small at these little devils. They may look small and cute with their baby blue colour but trust me, this is the worst part of all. After placing the spacers, I felt a slight discomfort as I can feel the spacers pushing my teeth forward. After an hour or so, the true nightmare came. The feeling did not go away but turned worse after i ate. The feeling of having a piece of meat stuck between 8 gaps of teeth is unbearable. Plus when you eat, you can't bite properly as the spacers are between your upper and lower teeth and you can also feel your teeth bounce back when they touch each other LOL. Not exaggerating, but that's the power of the spacers.

  After suffering for one week, I had a second appointment with my ortho. She took off the spacers and guess what happened? She found out that one of the spacers is trapped in my gum. I know one spacer had gone missing but i didn't bother telling her because I thought i swallowed it when I was eating. That was super scary! Luckily she found out early. I can't imagine having a rubber buried inside my gum but god knows how long it get infected. So she use something sharp (idk what's that called) to dig and and prick it out from my gum (Ouch!). One of the most painful experience I've encountered! After all the pain she fitted on two molar bands at the bottom of my 1st molar and a nance holding arch on my upper 1st molar. She told me that it's to prevent my molars from going forward. This is how a nance holding arch looks like.

Photo credited to http://www.delightfulsmiles.com/

My mouth LOLL

The process of fitting molar band is quite tedious. She tried a few sizes of band onto my teeth and chose the best fitted as the molar bands will accompany me for few years. I'll have to bite on something like a stick several times per band to push it in. She then cemented the bands. It only takes like 10 minutes to settle everything and I'm good to go. In order to proceed with my braces treatment, I'll have to extract 4 teeth to make space for my teeth to move. After extracting all 4 teeth then only I can make appointment with her to bond up the brackets and stuff.

Molar bands on babe! More to go.

  The next post that I'm going to blog about, tooth extraction!